“I don’t suppose she’d be contented at New Moon, with three old people like us.”
(“I would—I would!” thought Emily.)
“Ruth, what about you?” said Uncle Wallace. “You’re all alone in that big house. It would be a good thing for you to have some company.”
“I don’t like her,” said Aunt Ruth sharply. “She is as sly as a snake.”
(“I’m not!” thought Emily.)
“With wise and careful training many of her faults may be cured,” said Uncle Wallace, pompously.
(“I don’t want them cured!” Emily was getting angrier and angrier all the time under the table. “I like my faults better than I do your—your—” she fumbled mentally for a word—then triumphantly recalled a phrase of her father’s—“your abominable virtues!”)
“I doubt it,” said Aunt Ruth, in a biting tone. “What’s bred in the bone comes out in the flesh. As for Douglas Starr, I think that it was perfectly disgraceful for him to die and leave that child without a cent.”
“Did he do it on purpose?” asked Cousin Jimmy blandly. It was the first time he had spoken.